Photo: BCLions.com
Normally, we’d be filling this space with a look at training camps opening across the country and how every team in the league officially got its quest for the 108th Grey Cup underway on Sunday.
Of course, these aren’t normal times.
There’s been a sense of melancholy over the weekend in CFL circles and it’s evident on social media. Whether it’s fans, players and coaches or the people that cover these teams and the league, the should-have-been start of training camp was noticed and missed this weekend. It’s not that moments like this on the sports calendar weren’t appreciated in the pre-COVID-19 world, but you can add the start of training camp to the ever-growing list of things that will be celebrated when our world gets some of that normalcy back.
When I was working in Edmonton, covering the Eskimos for the Edmonton Journal, the start of training camp was always commemorated with a greasy spoon breakfast. I’d meet up with Gerry Moddejonge from the Edmonton Sun and Dave Campbell and Morley Scott from 630 CHED at the Route 99 Diner on 99 st. near Whyte Ave. for our start-of-season meal. It always put a first day of school feel to the day for me and that was only enhanced when we’d go from the diner up to Commonwealth Stadium to see our first practice (usually the first of a two-a-day) of the season.
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Jaelon Acklin went from fighting for a roster spot and fighting a teammate in training camp, to playing in the Grey Cup as a rookie (Patrick Doyle/CFL.ca)
You can sense that same first day of school joy from the players as they’re all getting on the field again, starting a new journey together and catching up on a long off-season spent mostly apart. Every year you see players that have added muscle, or guys that have trimmed down to be more effective. There are guys that you can see from the first few drills on the field that have gotten better and are ready to take the next step in their career.
Usually at some point in that first week full of two-a-day practices and hours of meetings spent together, you get your first fight of training camp. It sounds weird to say in a sport other than hockey, but I miss those fights. They rarely get completely out of hand and any player or coach will tell you that to an extent, that refusal to back down and desperation to win is usually a good thing. It’s also one of my favourite things to live tweet from practices.
Those kinds of things help introduce you to new players, too. Last year at Ticats’ camp, I watched a rookie receiver decide to go toe-to-toe with a staple of Hamilton’s defence, in Delvin Breaux. Twice! Come to think of it, it might be the only time I’ve seen a receiver-DB fight in training camp. The rookie, Jaelon Acklin, went on to have a very good year. He played in 17 games and had 708 receiving yards, with three touchdowns. As a rookie, he started in the Ticats’ Grey Cup loss to Winnipeg.
The other great part of watching training camp is that you get to see the league’s future stars launch themselves in these situations. The one that stands out the most to me over the last few years is Willie Jefferson in Edmonton’s training camp in 2014. He only had four sacks that year, but you could see his potential almost every day in camp and then in practice that year. When that potential started turning into blocked field goals and more sacks and interceptions and touchdowns, it was exciting but it wasn’t surprising.
I think right now more than anything, I miss the optimism of a training camp. You could go to each of the nine cities in the CFL during training camp and talk to players and coaches about what they’re doing and where they’re headed and they have all of the hope in the world. Sure, a month later reality might start to set in and separate the pretenders from the contenders, but at least for the first few semi-sequestered days and weeks of camp opening, there’s a belief that anything is possible for each group of players. That and mornings and afternoons spent in the sun watching it all, hits home on a weekend like this when it’s not happening.
We’re not sure when we’ll get to watch a training camp again like we did, but I know when the day comes, we’ll all appreciate it in a way we couldn’t have before.
